Nearly 80 teachers in the Dallas Independent School District face deportation when their visas expire later this year.

In Garland, two dozen teachers are still in limbo. Recruited from other countries, they’re on the verge of losing their jobs and being deported when their H1-B visas expire. They’re not alone. School systems and teachers across the country – and just down the highway in Dallas – are dealing with similar visa problems.

Joel Luera is a 9th grader at W.W. Samuell Early College High School in Dallas. He’s on the debate team and in a book club.

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Joel Luera and classmate Abel Hernandez do some research online for their world geography class.

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In his world geography class, Joel Luera is learning how to analyze and research material. His teacher, Jonathan Martin, says Joel is inquisitive and likes talking about global politics and the world economy.

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Debate coach Don Cheatum talks with Joel and his teammates about upcoming speech and debate tournaments.

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Joel and his debate teammates are looking forward to having debate offered as a class at Samuell High School next year.

Ninth-grader Joel Luera is a smart kid in a tough neighborhood. Sometimes other kids don’t get why he’s so studious. He loves to read – so much that he’s in a book club at W.W. Samuell High School in Dallas. Joel is the latest kid to join KERA’s series Class of ’17 – a five-year project following a group of North Texas students from 8th grade to graduation. It’s part of the national public media initiative American Graduate. Read More

Jazkira Combs is a ninth grader at Irma Lerma Rangel Young Women’s Leadership School. She says she’s undecided about what she wants to do after high school because sometimes she feels “like I can do everything.” But if she had to pick, she’d become a teacher.

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Alberto Rios is a ninth grader at the School of Science and Engineering Magnet at Yvonne A. Ewell Townview Center in Dallas. He says he plans to go to college and major in electrical engineering.

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Rozana Rojas teaches at Judge Barefoot Sanders Law Magnet at Townview Magnet Center. She says it’s her job to help mold students so they go to college and graduate.

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Art Hall is Director of Equity and Inclusion at Greenhill, a private school in Addison. After school, he teaches eighth through 12th graders enrolled in the Future Leaders Program. FLP is an enrichment program for a select group of students in the Dallas public school system.

Keeping kids focused on school is a challenge for any educator. Getting them to reach higher is even more challenging. As part of our Class of 17 series, we take a look at how a local law firm created an unusual alliance between private and public schools.

Pablo Valverde, 85, drives to his ESL class every morning. He’s always on time and usually wears one of several hats his daughter gave him. He says he’ll keep going to school for as long as he’s able to.

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Pablo Valverde, 85, says it’s harder these days to retain what he learns, but that hasn’t deterred him from attending school. His ESL class meets at the James W. Fannin school in Dallas Monday through Thursday. It’s part of the Dallas Independent School District’s adult education program.

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Pablo Valverde is the oldest student in his class and often one of the funniest. Here he jokes with Mirella Patlan, Juan Antonio de Lis and Rafael Fermin.

Pablo Valverde turns 86 in a couple of months. He says he wants to learn how to read and write English because it’s never too late to learn. He would also like to find some part-time work to occupy his time because he doesn’t like sitting around at home.

A few students in Lauren Dowdy’s English class have joined an after school book club that meets once a month.

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Students in Samuell’s Early College High School book club are reading Fahrenheit 451 and are leaning toward reading Into the Wild next.

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At a recent book club meeting at Samuell’s Early College High School, boys outnumbered girls. Nationally, girls outscored boys on a recent reading exam.

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Joel Luera and Michael Gasaway are two of the students in Samuell’s Early College High School book club.

When you think of book clubs, you don’t necessarily think of boys. And when you look at the most recent Nation’s Report Card, the scores reveal that boys don’t fare as well as girls on reading tests. Here’s one book club that’s bucking that trend.

A group of parents led by former State Rep. Allen Vaught is pushing for its own school district in the White Rock area. He’s created a Facebook page in support of the effort and plans to hold a meeting to discuss the idea.

A group of parents who live around White Rock Lake in East Dallas wants to split from the Dallas Independent School District. That’s right, the group wants to secede and create a new school district it’s calling White Rock ISD. But the hurdles are high.

Michael Hinojosa served as Dallas superintendent before Mike Miles. He’s now over Cobb County public schools in Atlanta.

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Former Superintendent Mike Moses now works for a search firm used by school districts to find job candidates.

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It’s unclear what former Superintendent Waldemar “Bill” Rojas is up to these days.

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Yvonne Gonzalez ended up going to federal prison after her short-lived tenure as superintendent.

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Chad Woolery was superintendent in the ’90s. He resigned weeks before the new school year to work for an entity that raised money for kids to attend afterschool programs.

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W. T. White remains the longest serving superintendent of Dallas schools. He retired after 22 years on the job.

A long line of leaders of Dallas schools has come and gone since August 1884 when a man named W. A. Boles was elected superintendent. KERA’s Shelley Kofler looks at this revolving door of superintendents in a story that aired today.

It’s worth noting, that in a quarter century, no Dallas school district superintendent has lasted more than six years. Through the years, there have been some retirements, resignations, firings, a few interims and even a prison sentence.

Vogel Alcove, a longtime champion of homeless children, has found larger digs. The Dallas Independent School District, which has a partnership with the nearly 25-year organization, said today that the group would be moving into the district’s former City Park Elementary School building south of downtown.

The new home will be four times larger than Vogel’s current location and will allow the organization to offer more services. The group serves children 6 weeks to 5 years old and provides free childcare and case management for families in local emergency and domestic violence shelters as well as housing programs.

According to the group, family homlessness has risen 36 percent during the past couple of years. On Thursday, some of the kids Vogel has helped will kick off the move and renovation of the new building by knocking down a faux wall.

Thomas Edison Middle Learning Center in West Dallas is set to become the first brain-trained center in the country. KERA’s BJ Austin reports that the Center for BrainHealth at the University of Texas at Dallas is taking its Strategic Memory Advanced Reasoning Training program, otherwise known as SMART, to the school to help teach students how to think and learn.

This intiative comes on the heels of new research showing that poverty can affect a child’s cognitive ability. As it turns out, Edison is in the the country’s 11th poorest zip code.

West Dallas Middle Schoolers Get Brain TrainingThe brain of a middle school child is a mystery. If you’re a parent, you may have found yourself saying “What were you thinking?” or “Use your brain”. That’s just what 6 th, 7 th and 8 th graders in West Dallas are going to do at a brain-training boot camp.